Twelve New Zealand poets

Edited by Jack Ross

Poems by Raewyn Alexander

I explain to the homeless man outside our supermarketby a tree which serves to hold shopping trolleys back(some wander in high winds as steel renegades across traffic)he wanted to know any newsso I spoke and pretended I didn’t remember himstood downwind to avoid the stench of ancient unwashed denims

we loaded my groceries into the car boot togetherwhile I talked and he listened as if we’d marriedstayed in the same house for reasons of children and accountingstopped any demands for obedience to each other’s rulesbut I knew his name and how he liked ice creama little melted and yet some still firmmy feelings also thawed enough to take timedesserts and good conversation require a lull

but he tried to tell me we were fated to be togetheras if we’d unwittingly signed up for a soppy romance movieand soon his buddy whispered to him ‘he’d told him so’they shambled away in late afternoon gold with leaves falling

I wondered for a few minutes what could’ve been if I’d chosen himinstead of the vampire with good map reading skillswho knew how to sneak into my room at nightto sit with his smile for a brain and waitfor my eyes to open then conditioning to polish my reactionover and over again the same secretknown observer a fright – media man in leather without a penbut he drew fantasies with perfect recall in black and white

so clean these bare stories in the wind and rain

girls soft as new grass

complicated as seedsthey slidstories rolledideas from pages plantedcool shapessounds from sparkly speaker cloth on the radiograma remember in the background of their ignorance of fences while uncles uncurled turf for lawn

then the day one girl (or was it the other)? pincheda new babythrough the bars of the playpenthe child cried a sudden squallthen boats of adults huddled to harbour

so she had to tell naughty twin about the Queen of Heartsher version with a royal burden of resentmentsgiven the task to love more than anyone else even if she was so ugly

how the failure of a storybook royal could teach themimpossible things existedon the concrete steps where sun soakedwhile fragments of know and silly or blur floated

each others thoughtsbetween them the way language turns into care into air

India — Early 20th Century and Other Tales

1

A painting of a cherub on an eyelash,offered for sale in a pavilion near the jungle.‘How rare,’ someone murmured.The magnifying glass — dropped,when an elephant crashed throughthe canvas and toppled tent poles.Where gin and tonics clinked,art admirers then faced sharptusks inches from a glass.

Later, Mum told how she walked World War Twothrough blackout city streets to her house,a white line middle of the road in moonlight.Hummed big band numbers and steppeda suburban perforation marked on asphalt,after-dance safety in a tune and paint.She knew the words and recognised,any time something could break from tame.Told children,“Find a good wayhome, my darlings.”

2

Invented rainy day stories golden with deedsto ensure our parents’ lullaby.‘Imagine,’ my sister said, ‘cut ourselves out,two girls from a picture book. Walk around.’A favourite has us both on a raft we lashedwith Dad’s ties and Mum’s aprons.Remnants of our old life flapped about us,while this clodhopper craft sped towards the sea.

In the washed night’s dilated eye something woke me,my twin in her sleep, calling puppy-sad for parents.The story sure to finish after a return in darkness,bedraggled girls with scratches from the river bank.Our trudge up the path towards orange-lit windows,where warmth produced the cold idea we weren’t missed.My twin tells me I remember things stung, too bluely,‘Just add a lit fireplace to the room.’She explains we arrived to warm cardigans,roars of laughter and kisses, like the end of a war.

“aged famous rockers tour the world” was first published in Blackmail Press 30 (2011).

Jack Ross has curated this feature devoted to twelve contemporary “unsung” New Zealand poets, whose work reveals the “immensely varied undergrowth of experimentalists, zealots, eccentrics, and prophets of various stripes," accompanied here by a number of images by the New Zealand artist Emma Smith.